When Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald entered the lobby of the hotel that day, they only knew to look for a toy. A complex logarithmic puzzle; easily solvable once you knew what you were looking for, but nearly impossible to see without the first step of the guide in place.

And so unfolded one of the largest dumps of classified government documents in modern history, the now-infamous “Snowden Leaks”. A federal contractor, Edward Snowden, along with journalists from The Guardian, The Washington Post, and the German-based magazine Der Spiegel, would unearth the single most complex and highly-funded surveillance operation to ever exist. His leaks would rip the veil off the spying arm of the U.S government, as well as dozens of other international bodies who were complicit in the construction, maintenance, and operation of the largest and most powerful spying network of all time.

But how did it come to this? How did one person make off with the secrets of millions? How could so few people see the signs until it was too late?